ABSTRACT: This paper explores the political and social forces that have led to the well-documented narrowing of the curriculum, squeezing out arts programming in schools. While not intended to be an exhaustive literature review, this work highlights important findings that correlate arts learning with biological changes as well as cognitive and academic advantages. Further, it explores how the arts may be the key to promoting twenty-first century skills of creative thinking and problem- solving. From this review, we hope that educators and policymakers will reconsider how arts education and arts-integrated learning can influence educational practices and policies.